In The News
Brazil’s government is looking “into Bolsomito 2k18’s developer, BS Studios, along with Steam and Valve. The purpose of the investigation (via Google Translate) is to ‘investigate the availability of the game ‘Bolsomito 2k18’, created by BS Studios and distributed by Valve Corporation (Steam),’” Eurogamer’s Emma Kent reports.
Starbreeze CEO Sebastian Ahlskog stepped down after 3 years.
John Heinecke, formerly of Blizzard and Overwatch, joined Square Enix as its CMO.
Netflix’s The Witcher series brought on Freya Allan to play Ciri and Anya Chalotra to play Yennefer, The Hollywood Reporter’s Patrick Shanley writes.
SuperData unveiled its new tool: SuperData Arena. It’s “designed to provide in-depth audience metrics and insights to video game publishers, brands, and sponsors,” Variety’s Stefanie Fogel reports.
Sega is moving its “QA division and relocate it from London to Sofia, Bulgaria,” GI.biz’s Christopher Dring reports.
WODuels is here. It’s a “wager platform which features player v player competitive duels for real-money. The announcement states the platform has advanced matchmaking and a zero-tolerance cheating policy,” Esports Insider’s Lydia Mitrevski writes.
Fimalac and Matthieu Dallon “have partnered to create Trust Esports, the first French venture capital fund for esports startups,” Esports Insider’s David Hollingsworth reports.
Full Sail University is opening a “11,200-square-foot arena dedicated to competitive gaming” in 2019, Orlando Sentinel’s Marco Santana reports.
Interviews: Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz (UploadVR).
Extra Esports News:
Infinite Esports & Entertainment, which owns teams like OpTic Gaming and Houston Outlaws, continues to shed staff. “President Chris Chaney is out of a job and 19 employees have been laid off, new President Ryan Musselman confirmed,” SportsBusiness Daily’s Ben Fischer reports. “‘Generally speaking, we think we grew too fast,’ said Musselman, who had been Senior VP/Global Partnerships.”
Partnerships:
Manchester City and Epsilon eSports are partnering for “the FIFA portion of the upcoming Gfinity Elite Series,” Hollingsworth reports.
Epic.LAN is partnering with Scan and ASUS “as their official retail and hardware partners for the next 12 months,” Hollingsworth reports.
Hearthstone posted “Hallow’s End is Nearly Upon Us!”
IN: Peirce “Gunless” Hillman joined Luminosity Gaming’s Call of Duty team.